


Forget Forgetting and the Mistakes Made

by K_promises_fall



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I guess reaper is in this too for like... a sentence, pre-Widowtracer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:30:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11982162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_promises_fall/pseuds/K_promises_fall
Summary: Widowmaker's memory is perfect. She never forgets anything, just like how she never misses a shot.





	Forget Forgetting and the Mistakes Made

In some ways, Widowmaker has a perfect memory.

_A counter hack has Sombra cursing in Spanish for hours. It is refreshing to see the hacker frustrated, beaten, dejected. Sombra is too arrogant, too careless, and entirely too self-serving, and so Widowmaker laughs silently, the corners of her mouth tipping up just enough to show her amusement._

_Fortunately for Sombra, the attack did not do much harm, but there is a line of data that is missing from a code stolen from Volskaya servers prior to her failed assassination - their failed assassination. (It is Sombra’s fault. It must be. Everything was too perfectly timed and Sombra was out of contact for much too long, and she does not miss. But she cannot prove it. Does not even know how. And to Talon, her opinion, her instincts, do not matter, only her results. So Sombra is safe, for the moment, but Widowmaker can still find satisfaction in the hacker’s misfortunes.)_

_She frowns, Volskaya is a bad memory for her, and never fails to sour her mood. Sombra deserves to fail in the eyes of Talon and be crushed for her inadequacy, but the information they had gathered, Sombra had gathered, is too important in the wake of her failure - their failure._

_The line of code that is missing is 52 characters long, more numbers than letters, a file name or reference, she is not sure. It was one of 15 lines, she remembers, important because Sombra had bragged about them to her for just under 7 minutes. The hologram had been open. Widowmaker had read, because it was there to read, but had not understood any of it. It is easy to recall, and easier still to recite._

_Sombra stops mid-tirade, and Widowmaker ignores the soft mutter of “Thank fucking Christ,” that comes from her escort. Her attention is entirely on Sombra._

_“What the-” Sombra sputters, and that too is amusing. Widowmaker’s smile returns. “Oye, loca, what was that supposed to be?”_

_“Your missing line of code.” She does not repeat it. Does not need to. Sombra records everything she sees and hears. She is a walking interrogation target - a liability, a risk Talon has exposed themselves to._

_Widowmaker watches as Sombra purses her lips, crosses her arms as she tilts her head back, thinking, processing. This is her opportunity to leave, she realises, and turns to do just that. Sombra may or may not say thanks as she goes._

In some ways, Widowmaker has a perfect memory. Talon’s doing no doubt. It must be, because otherwise it makes no sense to remember every detail in sequence, with perfect clarity and yet, and yet.

Overwatch Agent Lena Oxton, callsign Tracer. Military background, British, has minor time altering abilities due to an accident - to what has been called an accident. She was trained to fly planes, but then Overwatch altered her, improved her and now she fights her enemies up close with pulse pistols, pulse bombs and near incessant chatter.

_“Hey there, love,” a voice says from behind her, close, too close. “Been a while,” the voice goes on, and Widowmaker only just manages to roll away, out of the path of bullets from a pulse pistol, two pulse pistols. She grapples away, looks back at the woman chasing after her. Identifies her, but ah, it makes no sense, what she had said. They have never met before. Tracer would be dead if they had. Her feet hit the lip of the roof, she turns and readies her rifle. They have met now, and despite what the file has said about Tracer’s ability to dodge death, she is going to die. Widowmaker does not miss._

Lena Oxton is not her target, but if she interferes with a mission, Widowmaker is to kill her. Those are her orders. She is well prepared to execute them, once they meet.

She does not even remember forgetting.

_They are at a standoff, Tracer is breathing heavily, one hand and knee on the ground, ready to spring forward, to jump through time, to get closer. Widowmaker’s breathing is as calm as ever, but the bullets lodged in her thigh leave her immobile. Her rifle is pointed at Tracer, sights trained between her eyes. There is one bullet left in her magazine. Tracer cannot blink forward to close the distance without finding the right end of that bullet. Widowmaker cannot shoot first, or Tracer will use her blink to dodge instead, and Widow would find herself defeated, the time needed to reload would be all the time that Tracer needs. Tracer must move first, she decides. The bullet must not be wasted._

_Tracer smirks, “What you lookin’ at?”_

_“An annoyance!” Widowmaker snaps back. She is frustrated, angry. This is what a mistake causes, and regret feels like bullets in her thigh._

_“You know love, one day you’re gonna look back at all these fights we keep not settling-”_

_Widowmaker shoots. Tracer dodges. This will not be a mistake. She will go home, and Tracer will not._

_Tracer never gets to finish her sentence, but it was nonsense anyway. This is the only fight the two of them will ever have._

Her memory is perfect. Talon had made sure of it. Made sure to replace and enhance as much of her as they dared and then more. It is for her ability to learn, to improve, to become better without the need of further interventions by doctors and scientists and engineers. So then why does Reaper order punishment instead of reward, instead of a moment of lonely silence when she returns - successful, from a mission?

“You were supposed to kill her on sight. You’re supposed to kill all of them! That’s what we made you for!” he roars. He turns away from her, a melodramatic flair of fury, thanks to his overcoat. Widowmaker does not understand who this “she” is that she was supposed to kill and had not. She has always done everything they have directed her to do.

“Take her to maintenance!” he orders. And her escort tightens his grip on his gun. She could fight. She did no wrong.

But she goes.

_“You know, love. It’s a right shame what they done to you.”_

_Widowmaker lays flat on her back, breathing hard through her nose. Her arm is broken. Her grappling arm. There is blood in her mouth. Mistakes were made. So many. How? Why? What is wrong with her?_

_Tracer crouches next to her, pistols a stark white, held firmly in her hands. They aren’t pointed at her right now, at least, but that only means that Tracer believes her to not be that great of a threat. She is always a threat. A broken arm does not change that._

_But the broken shard of metal protruding from her stomach? That changes things. A little. Just a little._

_“Ah,” she murmurs. This is what real pain feels like. She processes, acknowledges it, and then stores it away. She needs to focus, she still has a mission to complete._

_“I mean, they must have been fairly sure this was a trap. Should have at least suspected. We weren’t all that subtle about it.” Widowmaker moves her right arm, searches the space next to her, feels only dirt against her fingertips. Tracer’s eyes follow the movement, and it is the fact that Tracer does nothing to stop her that tells her that Widow’s Kiss is nowhere nearby._

_“Honestly thought we’d have to go home embarrassed cause you’d do the smart thing and not show. Lucky us, you guys must be a bit daft, eh?” Tracer smiles down at her, eyebrows raised as if Widowmaker should find it as funny as she apparently does. Widowmaker scowls at her. She wants to threaten her, promise to kill her, but right now it is a promise that would be baseless. She needs to focus, she needs to think realistically._

_True to what the files on her state, Tracer does not stop talking. “The way I see it, there’s three possibilities here, yeah?” A gun returns to its holster on her right forearm. She holds up a finger. “One. Talon’s daft and sent you into an obvious trap without realising it. Two.” She holds up a second finger, wiggling both of them as she does. “Talon’s not that daft, but still pretty daft, and knowingly dropped you smack dab in the middle of a trap, by yourself, like a present, gift wrapped for us even.” A third finger comes up and Tracer’s smile drops. She looks serious, suddenly. A curious look for her._

_For some reason, Widow remembers a bullet lodging into a metal skull in King’s Row. A proud moment, a difficult shot. Perhaps Tracer’s accent has caused her to remember it._

_“Three,” she says. “They’re not daft at all, and still sent you in alone, anyway.”_

_Widowmaker glares up at her. Of course she is alone. She works best alone. Her solo missions never fail, but even then. “There is,” the words come out muffled and she almost chokes. She rolls her head to the side, spits out a mouthful of congealing blood, and then turns back to Tracer. “There is no difference, between possibilities two and three,” she manages to force out._

_Breathing is getting harder. She has to force her eyes to stay open. Is she bleeding out? Lifting her unbroken hand to her stomach is difficult, but she does it. Pats around the wound. There is blood there, yes, but not a worrying amount of it. Most of it is already dry._

_Tracer smiles down at her. It is a sad smile. She’s being pitied. She wants to be angry, but she is tired. “Of course there is love. Either they expected you to still succeed somehow, or they sent you here to die.”_

_No one is coming for her, she thinks._

She hasn’t been given a mission in months and it causes her to feel restless. She’s been confined to base, and that makes her wary. They’ve been feeding her, a lot, and that-

She’s nervous. Something is wrong. Her schedule consists of sleeping, eating, and exercising. They are preparing her for something. Reaper has not made an appearance, but Akande has. At the start of all this, he placed a large hand on her shoulder and had said, harshly, “You are failing.” Then softer, after, “We will fix this.”

They cut her hair.

Widowmaker has achieved nothing but success, save for Volskaya. She has done nothing to deserve this.

She’s angry enough one day to say it.

“You are forgetting,” Akande says. “That is our fault. We will fix it.”

They fix it.

She remembers something else instead.

_A knife in her hands, blade red and dripping. A hand, warm, comforting, covering hers. The hand goes slack, falls away. She is crying. “Gerard,” she pleads. “Gerard.”_

She remembers something else instead.

_“It’s my grandfather’s place. A chateau across from Annecy,” Danielle says. She shakes her head as she puts on her pants. They are the last two left in the changing room. Amelie is already dressed, but she decided to wait so they could take the train together. “Honestly, my parents hate the place, and I gotta agree. The room layouts make no sense and it’s old and drafty, but my grandfather refuses to spend his last days in a hospital so we have to go there to see him off.”_

_Danielle sighs, shakes her head. Frowns and looks away. “It’s easier, to think about how much I hate that house, than how I’m going there to watch him die.”_

She remembers something else instead.

_“Amelie,” her father sobs. He holds her close to his chest, kneeling with his arms around her shoulders. His tears soak into the shoulder of her dress. “Learn from this!” His voice is raw. “Learn from your idiot papa, okay?”_

_He lifts his head, moves his hands to cradle her face. The sight of his upset brings tears springing to her eyes. She does not know what else to do but cry._

_“Don’t ever marry a soldier, alright? Amelie?” He sniffs hard, wipes the tears away with the back of his hand before returning it to her cheek. “Don’t ever let yourself be put through this.”_

She remembers.

Tracer’s eyes are brown. Like dirt. The kind of dirt you put in a pot to grow plants in. Wet and warm. She knows because she’s seen them before. In person, not in a photograph.

_She looks into wide brown eyes that are glancing with panic between the dimmed light of the accelerator and the barrel of Widow’s Kiss, just scant feet away and held steady. Widowmaker can pull the trigger right now and be done with it. She can. She should._

_Her mission completed, she retracts the barrel on Widow’s Kiss and grapples away._

And also-

_Tracer’s eyes are brown, narrowed in concentration. Twice, Widowmaker has made a mistake, and now she will pay for it. Tracer has her dead to rights. She tries to move her leg and fails. The bullets don’t hurt, but they’ve done their damage._

_Her mission is completed, at least._

_Tracer sighs, steps back. “I’m only doing this once. ‘Cause of that last time.” She runs a hand through her hair - brown hair. Not as brown as her eyes. “I’m gonna regret this,” she mumbles and turns._

_Widowmaker reloads her rifle, but by the time she’s done, Tracer is gone._

And also-

_Her breaths are heavy, and becoming staggered. Tracer’s head is tilted back, her eyes are closed. If Widowmaker’s arm wasn’t broken, if the other wasn’t so heavy, she could reach for the knife in her boot. Stab her._

_Strangely, it is fine that she can’t. The thought of killing with a knife disgusts her._

_“Right then,” Tracer sighs. Their eyes lock. Brown. There is something about that shade that tells her to relax. That she will be fine._

_The other gun is holstered, and the hand that held it presses against her stomach, below ruined metal._

_“‘Fraid this is gonna sting,” she says, and grasps the bit of metal with her other hand. “But can’t bloody well patch you up with this thing sticking out of you.”_

Her memory is not perfect. Neither is her mission record. She has made mistakes, many of them.

They’ve put something over her eyes, but she knows where she is, recognises the stiffness of a surgery bed, the unforgiving grip of the belts that keep her from moving while on it. She recognises Akande’s hand on her shoulder.

Her head feels like empty space above her hairline.

Something she does must give her away, because his hand leaves her shoulder and he says, “You remember.” It’s an observation, not a question. Widowmaker cannot respond, anyway. “That is good,” he continues. “But you are still flawed. Again, that is our fault.” His hand returns for a brief pat, soft, comforting.

“We will fix you.”


End file.
